


wishbone

by torrentialTriages



Series: crush [3]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Loyalty, this is fucked up this fucked me up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 10:32:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9543875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: You can't get out of this one, you can't get it out of me, and with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because I'm hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own.- Wishbone, Richard Siken.Inspired by, but not written after the poem.





	

**Author's Note:**

> im not super superstitious but damn this split into four parts too easily

_I'll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me like the bullet was already there, like it's been waiting inside me the whole time._

_Do you want it? Do you want anything I have? [...]_

_If you love me, Henry, you don't love me in a way I understand._

 

**i.**

"you saved my life," jacobi tells him, drunken stupor loosening his tongue, lying on the hotel bed listening to the rain patter on the roof, and kepler wishes they weren't having this conversation.

he doesn't trust himself, like this, not around jacobi, whose intoxication on himself and his shitty booze and on kepler makes him almost dangerous to be around, with his feverish warmth and his willingness to do anything, the keen need he thinks he can hide from kepler, how he needs kepler to need him. need him the way jacobi needs kepler.

"think nothing of it, jacobi."

"no, no, really, sir, i..." he knows how this will play out. jacobi will go through the motions again, trying to express to kepler just how much he owes to him. milwaukee, aberdeen, jacksonville, amarillo, nashville, anaheim, new york city, boston, cleveland, san francisco, cape canaveral. kepler's heard the litany of bruises, displacement, of trying to lose himself and find himself in other men so many times over and over again, and sometimes he would kill to stop being put on this fucking pedestal. he will not respond.

he will refrain from biting out, lashing out with the virulence of the smoky snake coiling in his gut and forcing itself up his throat, _i know, i know now will you either fucking turn over or kiss me, you fucking miserable excuse of a sad sad man, will you go to sleep thinking of me or will you press your face into the pillow asking me to use you the way you've begged me to indulge your fantasies?_

sometimes jacobi will drift into sleep, curled into the crook of kepler's arm, sometimes he will press kisses to kepler's jaw, too much mouth and too much saliva and vodka littering kepler's skin, his hands roaming unbidden up kepler's stomach, maybe he will even stare moodily out the window, watching the rain patter as he ponders whatever the fuck he does. kepler doesn't know.

"sir?" jacobi's eyes are tired liquid. even the exhaustion and vodka can't lessen the gravity obviously keeping him attached to kepler.

"it's fine, jacobi." _don't start again._

"sir, i- oh." jacobi peers, disappointed, blearily alerted, at the growing dark patch on his shirt, oily and stringent as the alcohol trickles over the lip of the bottle. kepler has the flash of a violent impulse to take out a lighter and take them both up in flames.

as soon as jacobi starts snoring he finds himself out on the balcony, playing with his lighter and wishing he understood jacobi's frenzied moth's dance around fire, around breaking things, around the promise of kepler breaking him.

kepler doesn't understand the appeal of being broken, but fuck, he's ever glad to be the one jacobi wants to break him.

 

**ii.**

"you saved my life," kepler breathes, the dust and rubble still raining onto the concrete behind them, his fists curl in jacobi's wet shirt to haul himself up, and jacobi knows the wonderment in his voice will be gone within the minute. he cracks a wry grin, slanting, bubbly cough leaving lipstick-red streaks on his cheeks.

"jacobi?" kepler blocks out the sun. but why, then, what was the use of a sun in the first place when warren fucking kepler was there, like persephone with red guilty hands, with his hands pressed urgently to jacobi's chest, his hands coming away from jacobi's stomach riddled with rust and stain and oceans, rivulets that trickle down his fingers, but he's not panicking, jacobi isn't panicking, kepler isn't panicking, no, no, kepler would never panic

he's dizzy. he realizes this. but damn, having kepler worry about him like this was intoxicating. if the bullet inside him was lodged in his arm instead of his guts, jacobi might almost want to keep the cooling slug inside him, so kepler would always be hovering over him, always be near

"help me up," he whispers hoarsely instead. he cannot keep this moment. he cannot keep this bullet. he has to move on. kepler's hands move to his, lukewarm against clammy cold, kepler is crouching, kepler is pulling him up, cradling his back, kepler's hands are red and jacobi's chin is red and he wills his teeth to stop staining pink, fuck, the concrete under him is wet and maroon. how could one person have so much blood to lose? how could one person do this for another so willingly?

the rubble hasn't stopped falling.

"let's get out of here," kepler grits as he lifts jacobi, and everything is red, _fuck_ , how could he do this, "and let's get you patched up."

 

hunting accident, kepler tells the front desk of the closest motel, you shoulda seen the other guy. too bad the bear got away, eh, mark? (jacobi barks out a pained laugh.) no, no need to call the hospital, we'll deal with it like men. yes, we know what we're doing. no, it's not necessary. we're tough, you know, we're men who know how to deal with pain. yes. thank you.

 

for all the blinding searing pain through the goddamn ibuprofen, jacobi thinks, this is awfully fucking intimate.

 

"we'll have to wait for extraction," kepler scowls out the window. "they can get here in three hours at the fastest."

"mm," breathes jacobi, hands ghosting over his new stitches, stretched against the swollen lips of the forming scar. kepler crosses the room, pours himself a green tea from the breakfast room, and walks back across the room to his post.

"so i'll keep watch, and- what is it, jacobi?" kepler is blocking the light again, but it didn't seem much like a difference.

"just... stay with me," jacobi mutters, drunk on pain and nsaids that are wearing off and more that haven't hit him yet, and on neediness always on neediness that his sober mind could try to clean up before kepler notices, but jacobi never knows if kepler notices.

kepler sits on the bed with him, warm, but he feels galaxies away.

 

( **coda:** jacobi wakes in the goddard-owned private hospital with midday sunlight harsh and beatific on his pristine blankets, on kepler's weary unlined face, on the positively cherubic eyelashes curtaining deep dark eyebags, on the folded arms in his favorite leather jacket. he's been sitting there for fifteen hours, maxwell will tell him later in a matter-of-fact infodump. he's really attached to you.

jacobi finds, now and later, that he doesn't really want to clear the debt kepler may think he owes him.)

 

**iii.**

kepler's keys clink in his pocket, but not the pocket that jacobi's got his legs crossed above, it's the pocket of his fawn-brown leather jacket, the one he favors so much, sleeves wrapped around jacobi's wrists in a deadman's embrace.

("if the leather strains it's on you," kepler murmured in jacobi's ear, and jacobi knows he'll be held to it)

kepler's almost gentle like this, hands stroking jacobi's hair, lips brushing his ear as he murmurs that jacobi's doing well, tied up prettily like this, behaving himself because he knows how mad kepler would be if he disobeyed a direct order,  _sweetheart, babe, doll_

he should pinch himself, jacobi tells himself, to make sure this isn't a dream, that this is happening. sure, they'll go back to the high-octane mess of yanking clothes off each other, a honeyed toxin as it is, but... not now. he likes this, too.

a familiar rhythm, smoothed over and more of a shuffle, a langorous swaying back and forth

just... over and over and over and over.

 

**iv.**

this is part of the cycle, too. a dead body, a smoking gun in jacobi's hand, his eyes wide as he looks at kepler by instinct.

"well, that takes care of him," kepler pants, a faraway look in his eyes as he stoops to catch his breath. jacobi shoots him a look, and everything he wants to say goes unsaid, clamoring for a place on his lips

 _will you be_ proud _of me? will you pat my head, and tell me "good job, jacobi"? will you make my devotions worth it? i did it for you, but i did it for_  you, _sir. i want you to know you can trust me, meld me, mold me to be your perfect boy, your perfect weapon, i can be your fingers, i can be your right arm, let me be your right hand man, let me be_  yours

_i shouldn't have let them stitch me up. i should've kept that damn bullet._

and they will fall into bed later, jacobi knows, not talking about it, having a different conversation on top of it, rough lips and knees and thighs and necks and ribs and fingers and that line of hair, encroaching, a neat tangled frame. here is the bullseye. x marks the spot. here it is, maybe if you devote yourself to him you'll finally unlock the golden moment you've been seeking your entire life, boy

kepler straightens up. the moment is past. the sun breaks on them, cold and bright.

"let's go back." kepler's breathing is getting calmer and his hand on jacobi's spine is getting firmer. he laughs easily. "i'm in the mood for some scotch, and it's waiting for us at the office."

and so it goes. and so they go.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to read wishbone but havent, [its on pages 35-36.](http://library.globalchalet.net/Authors/Poetry%20Books%20Collection/Richard%20Siken%20-%20Crush%20\(Yale%20Series%20of%20Younger%20Poets\).pdf)


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